Acheson and Empire: The British Accent in American Foreign Policy

The Cold War Era

Dianne Kirby

University of Ulster, Jordanstown

'Gosh, I miss the Cold War', Bill Clinton reputedly claimed. Clearly
for reasons other than historical scholarship as the demise of the
Cold War has certainly not stemmed the ever-increasing proliferation
of books about a subject that has been exhaustively analysed and
passionately debated. Even allowing for Arthur Marwick's legitimate
observation that history is a constant re-writing and re-interpretation,
a cumulative development, do we really need yet more student texts
and a seemingly endless flow of research monographs? Judging by
the output, the answer of the publishing industry is a resounding
yes. Indeed, Ann Lane and Klaus Larres claim that the process of
accumulating knowledge and assessing the significance of new findings
in the context of previous Cold War scholarship 'is still very much
in its infancy' (p. 16).

Access to new sources, the constant revision of old sources, plus
the different insights opened up by other fields, especially at
present cultural history, mean that Cold War history is continually
being enriched. Certainly there have been some significant developments
in the last two decades of Cold War historiography. European scholarship
flourished in the 1980s following the opening of the archives. The
emerging European perspective laid open a far more elaborate pattern
of relations in the international arena than had previously been
recognised. It not only challenged existing scholarship, it revealed
the valuable contribution external sources make to a nuanced and
fuller appreciation of the US foreign policy making process.

Perhaps the most significant development has been the opening of
the Russian and East European archives that followed the ending
of the Cold War. A great deal of excitement has been generated by
the 'new' Cold War history coming out of these recently opened archives.(1)
This is reflected by Klarres' and Lane's inclusion in their excellent
collection of classic essays, entitled simply The Cold War,
of an extract from Vladislav Zubok's and Constantine Pleshakov's
jointly-authored Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to
Khrushchev (Cambridge, Mass., 1996). Addressing
the most critical point of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis,
Zubok and Pleshakov use Soviet archives to delve into the influences
and events that shaped Khrushchev's thinking as the world teetered
on the edge of potential nuclear annihilation.

In 'Khrushchev and Kennedy: the taming of the Cold War', the two
authors present some fascinating revelations about the Soviet premier,
his perceptions of Kennedy and the high hopes he had of the new
president. They also disclose how valid public fears were at the
time and just how close to catastrophe the world actually came,
revealing that at the time the US Chiefs of Staff proposed a preventative
strike on the Soviet installations in Cuba, the head of the provisional
Soviet troops there, General I. A. Pliyev, had a nuclear option
at his discretion. The extract provides a detailed exegesis of the
trail of events, already explored by American historians in relation
to J. F. Kennedy, which led the Soviet premier and the American president
to seek more careful containment and management of the East-West
conflict.

While material from the Soviet archives is of incalculable value,
it should not be forgotten that much remains to be learned from
the Western side, where far too much still remains classified. An
excellent example of effective and objective use of what is available
in the newly declassified sources comes from Gregory Mitrovich,
Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to subvert the Soviet
Bloc, 1947–1956. A notable contribution to the Cornell Studies
in Security Affairs series, the book is distinguished by meticulous
research, measured argument and penetrating analysis. Mitrovich
develops a proposition that has recently gained currency, that liberation
was implicit in the policy of containment as formulated during the
Truman era. W. L. Hixson, in his much-praised ground-breaking cultural
study Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War
(Houndmills; New York, 1997), had previously argued that the American
aim was to avoid direct military conflict through the application
of external and internal pressures aimed at promoting instability
in the Soviet bloc.(2) Mitrovich
contends that the United States initiated offensive action against
the Soviet bloc independently of and simultaneously with the inauguration
of containment. Mitrovich is not suggesting that American national
security elites planned global economic hegemony. Rather, he posits
that the desire to create a world without competing blocs, taken
together with Soviet policies in Eastern Europe, 'required that
the cold war be a struggle for world supremacy with one system ultimately
emerging as victor ... as indeed has happened' (p. 181).

Mitrovich uses recently declassified intelligence files to argue
that the Cold War struggle, especially from 1948 to 1956, was in
reality a true war with a victor and a loser. He notes, however,
that post-war US policymakers did not intend nor foresee the long
commitment that ensued. In fact, they feared that a long-term division
of the world would make economic depression and world war inevitable,
whereas an open international economic system without competing
political-economic blocs would be a guarantor of peace and stability.

These beliefs predisposed US policy-makers to favour the expeditious
elimination of the Soviet threat, thus allowing the construction
of a global political-economic order that included the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe. In effect, what we have today. The war was to
be fought by non-military methods, psychological warfare and covert
action in particular, highly influenced, however, by the military
balance of power, which in the final analysis decided the outcome.
Ironically, it was the developing nuclear stalemate that came to
provide the sought for stability, constraining American efforts
directed toward a quick win.

Mitrovich presents an intricate outline of the sharp bureaucratic
friction and rivalry that pervaded the policy process in Washington.
Although there appears to be a consensus from 1948 about the need
for covert operations and political warfare against the Soviet Union,
there was little agreement on what should be done or who should
be in charge. The State Department, the CIA, the Pentagon and the
PSB (Psychological Strategy Board), a sub-committee of the National
Security Council, held differing views on Soviet vulnerabilities
and capabilities, leading to different policy offerings. Naturally,
this resulted in programmes that, during both the Truman and Eisenhower
administrations, lacked clear and consistent guidance and objectives,
were inadequately co-ordinated and were without proper accountability.

Although the Eisenhower administration is credited with slightly
better organisation and success in developing political warfare,
Mitrovich identifies an inherent contradiction between propaganda
and policy. Despite calls for liberation and 'roll-back', the Eisenhower
administration was in actuality exceedingly cautious in terms of
implementation, deterred in the main by the Soviet Union's perceived
nuclear capabilities. Eventually, the Eisenhower administration
emulated the more moderate policies to which Truman had succumbed
and which the Republicans had vehemently indicted, retreat from
over-pressurising the Soviets and inadvertently provoking a nuclear
response.

Mitrovich's book joins a growing body of scholarship that has challenged
the traditional view that it was the Soviet Union that was the master
of propaganda and political warfare during the Cold War. (3)
However, gauging the success of covert and propaganda activities is
not easy. Mitrovich subscribes to the view that American advocacy of
liberation drew the Hungarians into an imprudent and unfortunate uprising.
But impetus also came from internal factors, not least a domestic power
struggle that escalated from demonstration to insurrection. Nonetheless,
this book offers an invaluable exegesis of a notoriously difficult-to-research
dimension of Cold War history. Mitrovich's scholarship is not only highly
commendable, but also testimony to the continuing value of American-based
archival research.

The same is true of the work of John McNay whose book Acheson
and Empire: The British Accent in American Foreign Policy is
based on rigorous research in archival sources that include the
Truman Library, the National Archives, the Public Record Office
in London and Acheson's personal papers at Yale. McNay presents
a persuasive and compelling argument that is not only a reassessment
of Dean Acheson and a challenging revision of a crucial period in
Cold War history, but also highlights the personal dimension as
being of much more significance than it is usually accorded in the
historical record.

It is McNay's contention that 'Human agency is an especially key factor
in foreign policy making'. On this basis he has undertaken a study of
the ambiguities and complexities of US foreign policy in the context
of one man's personal history, Dean Acheson. Acheson was one of the
main architects of the Cold War as Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953
in the administration of President Harry Truman. Acheson was, according
to McNay, 'more responsible for the foreign policy of the United States
during his tenure in office than the president he served'.

McNay posits that to understand the substance of American foreign policy
in these crucial early Cold War years, it is Acheson rather than Truman
who needs to be studied. And to understand Acheson, according to McNay's
central argument, it is critical to appreciate the way in which his
policy choices were influenced by his 'world-view'. According to McNay,
Acheson's world-view, to which he adhered throughout his life, 'not
only grew out of his Ulster heritage but also encouraged him to see
international relations generally, and US policy specifically, in terms
derived from traditional style British imperialism'. (p. 2)

McNay's argument deserves serious consideration, not least owing to
the consequential outcomes for the United States and Britain that he
perceives as deriving from Acheson's polices in these years. The British
were encouraged to devote more resources than they could afford to often
hopeless situations because they mistook the support and sympathy of
one man as indicative of general American favour and long-term and assistance.
Nor were Acheson's policies good for America. Support for Britain in
these years brought unwelcome repercussions, generating bitterness and
criticism, even hostility, from Third World nations that saw the United
States as 'little better than a front for British interests' (p. 4).

McNay tests his hypothesis with a close examination of the responses
from the United States and Britain to four nations, India, Ireland,
Iran and Egypt, all seeking independence from British control during
Acheson's secretaryship. In the process of testing his own conclusions,
McNay challenges the widely accepted view that Acheson was a foreign
policy realist. He contends that this is a view that requires modification
in the light of the 'imperial paradigm' to which Acheson was subject.
Most importantly, McNay argues that historians have overstressed
the continuity of US foreign policy during the Cold War era. He
claims that there were significant changes in US foreign policy
between when Acheson entered and left high office and that historians
have missed these owing to Acheson's success in masking his imperial
paradigm behind a veil of realist rhetoric.

Certainly the case studies that McNay presents for consideration
provide persuasive insights that support his interpretation of Acheson's
motivation. Each one is a worthwhile study on its own account, showing
a masterly grasp of the minutiae and nuances of unfolding event
in the countries examined, not to mention equally profound insights
into the evolution of Anglo-American relations and the interaction
of individual British and American officials. McNay convincingly
shows that human agency matters. In demonstrating this point, however,
he raises the difficulties, particularly pertinent to the study
of Cold War diplomacy, in discerning the influence in the policy-making
process between pragmatic realism and romantic idealism.

In arguing that historians have not simply overlooked the nostalgic,
romantic admiration for empire incorporated into Acheson's diplomacy,
but have mistaken it for realism, McNay raises a significant problem
at the heart of Cold War history. Realism as a philosophy is notoriously
hard to define. The problem is compounded by the complex phenomenon
of the Cold War, the very nature of which remains contested, especially
the degree to which it was an ideological conflict as opposed to
a pure power struggle. And it is this same difficulty that makes
it impossible for McNay to prove his thesis. He himself recognises
that a key objection to his study is that it ignores the perceived
necessity at the time of preserving the Anglo-American alliance
in the Cold War world. McNay's evidence is persuasive, but it does
not displace the other cogent explanations provided by realism.
What it does do effectively is to illustrate the importance of the
ideals, beliefs and values of key leaders in the international arena.

The distinguished Cold War historian Melvyn Leffler has elsewhere drawn
attention to how the new historians of the Cold War stress the significance
of ideas and beliefs. However, while focusing on the importance of ideology
and culture, the new scholarship tends to be preoccupied with communist
ideology rather than that of the West. (4)
The trend is discernible in We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History
by John Lewis Gaddis (Oxford, 1997), the best known historian of the
Cold War and foremost proponent of a school of interpretation –
post-revisionism – that stresses the importance of geo-politics
and power balances. (5) Gaddis's new
work is distinctive owing to the extent that it abandons post-revisionism
and returns to a more traditional interpretation of the Cold War, blaming
the Cold War on Stalin's personality, on authoritarian government and
on Communist ideology. (6)

American ideas and the actions they inspired have been rather marginalised
in the new literature, which conveys an image of a passive Washington.
(7) In reality, as McNay shows, American
officials held powerful beliefs that influenced their approach to policy-making.
And, as McNay again shows, these beliefs were more than simply about
the superiority of American institutions, culture and way of life. Thus,
while McNay might not persuade everyone to accept his central contention
about Acheson's motivations, he raises profound questions about the
role of individual beliefs and values in the policy-making process.

For students newly embarking on the study of the Cold War there are
two excellent new texts from Blackwell. The prize-winning author of
The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold
War (Oxford, 1986), Fraser J. Harbutt, reveals a firm grasp of
the period from the Yalta conference in 1945 to the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991 in The Cold War Era. A first class
contribution to Blackwell's useful series 'Problems in American History',
the text is more than an important introduction to the Cold War, it
is an outstanding overview of a complex and critical period in which
the Cold War was sometimes the key player and sometimes simply the backdrop.
In addition to being a comprehensive survey, the book is distinguished
by perceptive insights into the historiographical debates, which Harbutt
not only shrewdly assesses, but to which he also makes significant contributions.

A key feature of this book is that the reader derives a sense of
the ways in which historians, academic, journalist, novelists and
others, have defined and explained compelling Cold War issues, while
simultaneously being treated to Harbutt's own distinctive approach
to the period. Harbutt's judicious insinuation of his particular
notions provides an original and stimulating outlook that brings
fresh perspectives to material that can otherwise seem deceptively
familiar. For example, Harbutt views American diplomacy as in the
main the expression, not of a warrior or imperial culture, but of
a compulsively managerial ethos. Harbutt is 'intrigued by the uneasy
co-existence of a conservative political structure and a private
realm of techno-business volatility and radical popular culture'
(p. ix). Additional insights are derived from Harbutt's invoking
the neglected concept of generational change to supplement the hallowed
trinity of class, race and gender.

Above all, Harbutt's multi-dimensional treatment of the era provides
rich insights into and telling analyses of American society and
the way in which the Cold War was at all times a formidable cultural
and intellectual presence. He also writes with a flair and clarity
that make the book a pleasure to read.

Equally pleasurable to read, well presented and discerning is The
Cold War: The Essential Readings. The editors, Klaus Larres
and Ann Lane, are to be commended on a selection that provides not
only an introduction to the period, but also an introduction to
some of the very best scholars and scholarship in the field. The
essays are solicitously arranged into four thematic sections that
provide a logical and coherent overview of the period: 'Cold War
origins', 'First attempts at conflict management, 'War and Détente'
and 'The end of the Cold War'. Each section is introduced by an
informative summary of the period, including an erudite and astute
review of its historiography.

While the value of the Melvyn P. Leffler survey (see note 4) lay
in its authorial overview, the value of this book is very much in
the diversity of views presented. The two texts are extraordinarily
complementary and students would certainly profit from studying
the two together. From Larres and Lane, in particular, students
will learn to appreciate the opposing scholarly views and different
interpretations that are the essence of Cold War historiography.
For example, to illustrate how the debate about Cold War origins
is one about perceptions and intentions, the selection begins with
two of the most eminent Cold War historians, Leffler and Gaddis.
While both authors express reservations about Soviet intentions,
Gaddis argues that the US was ultimately a reactive power and that
the primary element in bringing about the Cold War was the personality
of Josef Stalin. Leffler, on the other hand, is rather more equivocal
about American foreign policy.

The end of the Cold War took scholars completely by surprise. Insightful,
cogent commentaries on this unpredicted event come from two doyens
of Cold War history, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr and H. W. Brands. Other
important contributions on key Cold War episodes come from Richard
Crockatt, Raymond L. Garthoff and Klaus Larres himself, not to mention
the important essay from Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov
discussed above. Lane and Larres are to be congratulated on bringing
together this wide range of excellent scholarship into a coherent
whole that makes a first class contribution to our understanding
of the era and the ceaseless debates surrounding it. And in the
crisis climate of the present, with the ominous resonance of the
'War on Terror' increasingly redolent of America's Cold War past,
these debates are of more than just historical merit.

Bill Clinton missed the Cold War because anti-communism provided
a more potent rationale for American interventionism than did humanitarian
missions and promoting democracy in the eyes of the all-important
American electorate. Michael Ignatieff is not alone among political
commentators in discerning the degree to which the political and
intellectual climate of the 'War on Terror' now resembles that of
the Cold War. (8) David Blight
reminds us that 'All memory is prelude.' (9)
Therefore, keeping in mind George Orwell's famous epigraph, 'Who
controls the past, controls the future', the fact is that we need
more books of the calibre of those discussed here. More research,
more debate, more understanding of the Cold War is today an urgent
imperative.

April 2002

Notes

John Lewis Gaddis, We Now
Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford, 1997). Back to (1)

I make the same point in a
study of how religious forces were mobilised to create dissent and
contribute to instability behind the Iron Curtain, 'Harry Truman's
religious legacy: the holy alliance, containment and the Cold War',
in Religion and the Cold War, ed. D. Kirby (Basingstoke,
2002). Back to (2).

Scott Lucas, Freedom's
War: The US Crusade Against the Soviet Union, 1945–1956 (New York, 1999). Back to (3).

Melvyn P. Leffler, 'The Cold
War: what do "We Now Know"?', American Historical Review,
104 (1999), 501–24. Back to (4).